HP EliteBook 845 G10 The almost perfect business laptop with AMD Zen4

120 Hz and 5G. HP is presenting its best, AMD-equipped business notebook in the new EliteBook 845 G10. The Ryzen 9 Pro 7940HS offers a lot of performance and the EliteBook doesn’t have any weakness in other areas either. Only the RAM configuration is not optimal.

Andreas Osthoff, 👁 Andreas Osthoff (translated by Jacob Fisher), Published 08/15/2023 🇩🇪

Note: The manufacturer may use components from different suppliers including display panels, drives or memory sticks with similar specifications.

HP mainly uses aluminum for the case of the EliteBook 845 G10 and the build does not differ from last year’s G9 model. The silver-colored case is overall very restrained and does not have any color contrasts apart from the reflective HP logo on the lid and the black keyboard. The surfaces are overall very fingerprint- and dirt resistant. 

The stability of the base unit is very good and no creaking noises are emitted. The hinges are well adjusted and the maximum opening angle is 180 degrees. The display lid itself is a little more flexible, but we were unable to elicit any image distortions. The screen bezels on the sides are very narrow and only a bit thicker above and below, but there is no camera hump.

At 1.466 kg, the EliteBook 845 G10 is no lightweight and also lands in last place in our comparison group. It is also a little wider than rival devices, but not quite as thick. The very compact 65-watt power supply adds another 300 grams to the scales.

      HP EliteBook 845 G10 818N0EA       Lenovo ThinkPad T14s G3 21CQ002LGE       Dell Latitude 7440       Huawei MateBook X Pro 2023       SCHENKER Vision 14 2022 RTX 3050 Ti       DIN A4 {element.classList.add(‘hideEl’)});document.getElementById(‘showDeviceSizelabel_339665’).checked=false;document.querySelectorAll(‘#showDeviceSize_333488’).forEach(element=> {element.classList.add(‘hideEl’)});document.getElementById(‘showDeviceSizelabel_333488’).checked=false;document.querySelectorAll(‘#showDeviceSize_339036’).forEach(element=> {element.classList.add(‘hideEl’)});document.getElementById(‘showDeviceSizelabel_339036’).checked=false;document.querySelectorAll(‘#showDeviceSize_338054’).forEach(element=> {element.classList.add(‘hideEl’)});document.getElementById(‘showDeviceSizelabel_338054’).checked=false;document.querySelectorAll(‘#showDeviceSize_333150’).forEach(element=> {element.classList.add(‘hideEl’)});document.getElementById(‘showDeviceSizelabel_333150’).checked=false;return false;” title=”hide all”>❌

The port selection is very good. Apart from a card reader, all important ports, including a SmartCard reader (e.g. for company ID cards), are available. The two USB-C ports support the USB 4.0 standard and thus allow the connecting of external graphics cards.

The WLAN module comes from Realtek (8852CE) and also supports the current Wi-Fi 6E standard. We were able to connect to the corresponding 6 GHz network of our Asus reference router without issue in our tests. Transfer rates and signal stability are excellent, and the results are better than those of the competition. A network port is not available, but can be added via an optional USB adapter. In addition, a 5G modem from Fibocom is installed in our test device (FM350GL) and you can use either a nano-SIM card or an eSIM.

HP installs a 5 MP camera and the image quality is significantly better than the usual 1080p models, especially in terms of image sharpness. The color accuracy is not optimal, but you can easily do without an external webcam, especially for video conferences. An IR camera is also installed for facial recognition via Windows Hello.

The base plate is secured with five regular Phillips screws and is easy to remove. The maintenance options are overall very good because there are two RAM slots next to the SSD. These are located under additional covers, but they are only clamped. The WLAN and WWAN modules are also plugged in.

The keyboard of the EliteBook 845 G10 is one of the best laptop keyboards on the market. Key travel is around 1.5 mm and the feedback is very precise. Subjectively, we prefer this keyboard more than in the current ThinkPad models. The only two aspects that require getting used to are the small arrow keys and the power button, of which the latter is integrated into the top right of the keyboard. The fingerprint scanner is located below the keyboard.

HP has been doing away with the pointstick in the middle of the keyboard and the accompanying dedicated mouse buttons for some time now and uses a regular ClickPad instead. However, this is not necessarily a drawback and the ClickPad works very well. The smooth surface offers good gliding properties and implements all inputs (including multi-touch gestures) without limitations.

HP offers various displays for the EliteBook 845 G10. We cannot recommend the 250 nits IPS display (which is not available in all regions) or the SureView display (up to 1,000 nits, but poor subjective image quality). On the other hand, the 400 nits IPS display (Full HD) is a solid screen that offers the best runtimes thanks to lower power consumption. The optional 120 Hz IPS display with 2560×1600 and an anti-glare surface is installed in our test device. The screen is not completely matte, but reflections are minimal.

Our subjective impression of the picture quality is overall very good because colors look vivid and content is very sharp. Bright areas appear slightly grainy at very short distances, but this is not an issue at a normal sitting distance. HP specifies a brightness of 500 cd/m², which is clearly exceeded by our test device at an average of 560 cd/m². The black value of 0.38 cd/m² suffers a little under the high brightness, but the overall contrast ratio is still nearly 1500:1. PWM is not used and the response times are very good for an IPS panel, but there are slighly visible halos, especially at the upper edge.

* … smaller is better

The panel is already very well calibrated in its delivery state. Our analysis with professional CalMAN software (X-Rite i1 Pro 2) reveals that the grayscale display is already on the reference level and no color cast is visible. In terms of colors, only blue is above the important deviation of 3, which are unable to correct via our own calibration. The P3 color space is fully covered, but there is no option to switch the color space to sRGB.

Display Response Times

↔    Response Time Black to White
7.9 ms … rise ↗ and fall ↘ combined	↗ 4.1 ms rise
	↘ 3.8 ms fall
The screen shows very fast response rates in our tests and should be very well suited for fast-paced gaming. In comparison, all tested devices range from 0.1 (minimum) to 240 (maximum) ms. » 14 % of all devices are better. This means that the measured response time is better than the average of all tested devices (22 ms).
↔    Response Time 50% Grey to 80% Grey
12.7 ms … rise ↗ and fall ↘ combined	↗ 5.8 ms rise
	↘ 7 ms fall
The screen shows good response rates in our tests, but may be too slow for competitive gamers. In comparison, all tested devices range from 0.25 (minimum) to 636 (maximum) ms. » 18 % of all devices are better. This means that the measured response time is better than the average of all tested devices (34.7 ms).

Screen Flickering / PWM (Pulse-Width Modulation)

Screen flickering / PWM not detected
In comparison: 53 % of all tested devices do not use PWM to dim the display. If PWM was detected, an average of 18982 (minimum: 5 – maximum: 3846000) Hz was measured.

Thanks to the high screen brightness, you can often find a place outdoors where you can work properly. However, direct sunlight should be avoided. The viewing angle stability is good overall, but the image brightens up quickly, especially from an above angle. Better IPS panels are available here.

HP offers the EliteBook 845 G10 with the latest Ryzen CPUs from AMD. Our test device uses the fastest option, the 35-watt Ryzen 9 Pro 7940HS. Ryzen 5 or Ryzen 7 models of the U series are also optionally available. Our test device is also equipped with a 32 GB RAM module, which has a negative impact on graphics performance. Of course, this is not the most important factor in a business laptop, but it makes little sense not to utilize the hardware. We also ran some GPU and gaming benchmarks in dual-channel configuration (2x 16 GB DDR5-5600).

HP doesn’t offer any additional energy settings; the regular Windows profiles are used instead. The Ryzen 9 Pro 7940HS consumes a maximum of 51 watts, but 35 watts in the most energy-efficient mode. That is also the disadvantage of the HS processor because users don’t always need that much power in everyday office use. The U-series chips should have an advantage here because they can be configured with lower power limits.

The Ryzen 9 Pro 7940HS stems from AMD’s current Phoenix generation and offers 8 Zen4 cores. The chip is manufactured in a modern 4 nm process and can run a maximum of 16 threads simultaneously. The chip consumes a maximum of 51 watts and 41 watts permanently, which leads to very good results in the benchmarks. Overall, performance remains very stable and all other comparison devices are clearly surpassed, at least in the multi-core benchmarks. The advantage over last year’s EliteBook 845 G9 with its Ryzen 9 Pro 6950HS is 19% on average, but single-core performance has increased only minimally. Intel still has an advantage here with the performance cores, although the power consumption is also higher. On battery power, CPU performance remains constant. More CPU benchmarks are available in our tech section.

* … smaller is better

Help

The EliteBook 845 G10 is a very responsive laptop in everyday use and the RAM’s single-channel configuration does not have a negative impact here either. The synthetic benchmark results are also good; only in the cross-system CrossMark test do AMD systems perform a little weaker. No issues occurred during testing and we were able to upgrade the RAM without any problems.

* … smaller is better

The test device shows no limitations in our standardized latency test (web browsing, 4K YouTube playback, CPU load) with the present BIOS version. Hence, the use of real-time audio applications without errors is possible.

* … smaller is better

HP equips the EliteBook 845 G10 with a fast PCIe 4.0 slot for M.2 2280 SSDs and our test device has the 1 TB version of the SK hynix PC801 installed, with 895 GB available upon booting up for the first time. Transfer rates are very good overall and no performance drops occur under prolonged load. More SSD benchmarks are available here.